


Shifter

by neildylandy



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Benr(e)y Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Canon, Shapeshifting, Trauma, liberal use of the Black Mesa Sweet Voice™, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24702817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neildylandy/pseuds/neildylandy
Summary: Days, nights, shapes, perspectives.Nothing stays the same forever.(Gordon finds that out the hard way.)
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Benry/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 120
Kudos: 727
Collections: HLVRAI, Key Enjoyed





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my friends online who consistently referred to this fic as "shitter" whenever i brought it up
> 
> thank you for your support and i love you all

Despite how much time Gordon spends staring at it, the scene in front of him resolutely refuses to change.

One of them has put his goddamn cereal on the top shelf _again_. 

The box of Honey Nut Cheerios looms over him, alone on a shelf that he keeps completely empty for precisely five feet and five inches of reason. He stands on his toes and stretches an arm up, knowing it's not going to reach but feeling the need to try anyway. Just in case the universe is going to decide to be nice to him today.

The universe, as always, tells him to go fuck himself. He drops his arm and pushes his glasses up so he can rub the sleep out of his eyes. Then, because he's worthy of his degree, he tries to science out the problem of who did it this time.

Tommy was the most recent perpetrator of this particular crime, and he is the tallest of them by far, but he's also the only one that Gordon genuinely trusts to pay attention to him when he asks nicely for something. If he loses that trust, he loses everything.

Bubby would probably do this just to spite him for the fact that Gordon refused to try his frankly terrifying combination of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and microwaved Monster energy drink, despite "how efficient it would be". But...no, Bubby would've left some kind of sign, and Gordon checks his forehead and finds it clear of any passive-aggressive sticky notes.

Coomer...has those Extendo-Arms, doesn't he? Gordon thinks he still does. It'd be pretty fucked up if he didn't. Would he have done this? Maybe? His pre-Cheerios energy levels are not strong enough to pull him through the rest of this Sherlock Holmes bullshit. He gives the box a look of undisguised longing, sleepily reaching out a hand again. He's somehow further away from getting at it than ever. 

"HEY," he yells in the general direction of the living room, hoping desperately that humility will please this terrible universe. "Can one of you assholes get my Cheerios off the top shelf? Gordon needs breakfast."

"Good morning, Gordon!" says Coomer, somewhat muffled. Gordon peeks in and finds that he's the bottom layer of what he's been told is called a Black Mesa Relaxation Heap. He'd find it cute if he hadn't been the victim of that heap once. And _only_ once. He forcibly shoves away that thought when Coomer keeps talking. "We successfully watched the entirety of the Lego Movie five times before you woke up. A new record!"

"It's hardly breakfast time anyway," Bubby adds, the middle layer of the heap. "Or even lunch, really. It's nearly four in the afternoon. You made us _forage_ like _common beasts._ "

"Don't worry, I'm full," says Coomer cheerfully. "I located a lovely 'Cheesed Sandwich' in a 'Trash Can'."

Gordon's head is already in his hands. "Guys, what did I tell you about how getting food works now that we're not fighting for our lives?"

"Oh! Yeah! I remember you said that we can get stuff from your house as long as it doesn't have your name on it, Mr. Freeman," Tommy recites, sitting politely on the top layer. He frowns at Gordon. "But we—we couldn't read the handwriting very well, and it was really late in the—the morning. We got too hungry and we didn't wanna wait for you to wake up..."

Gordon is very much considering climbing directly back into bed. "Alright, well just...next time, if it comes between eating from the fuckin' _garbage_ or eating my food, just eat my goddamn food." He pauses. "And don't make me regret giving you that permission or I _swear to god—_ "

"These suck," interrupts a voice that never fails to instantly snap him into full alertness, even after however long it's been since the owner of that voice dragged himself back into Gordon's life. Benry is eating his Cheerios straight out of the box with his bare hands. "Go get Lucky Charms. You don't like Lucky Charms? Idiot?"

Gordon marches up and snatches the box out of Benry's hand. Benry holds on just tightly enough that when he lets go, it sends Honey Nut Cheerios spraying out all over the floor. "Whoa, butterfingers. You gotta find less slippy hands," he says, unconcerned, somehow audible even over the sound of Gordon's teeth grinding. 

"Just—why did you even _get_ them, then?!" Gordon asks, as he furiously finds a broom and tries to sweep the Cheerios around Benry, who refuses to move. "Did you fucking climb my shelves like a fucking _chimp_ , just to eat my fucking cereal?"

"That's three uses of the Fuck Word in one sentence, Gordon!" Coomer warns from the other room. "Any more and you'll be forced to put a Play Coin in the Swear Jar."

Gordon resists the urge to tell Coomer to fuck off. He can't afford to be in Play Coin debt on top of all this. Instead, he just clamps his mouth shut and continues sweeping. Benry seems to take this as an opportunity to keep talking. "I put 'em on the shelf like you _aaaasked_ , bro. You've never got...satisfaction. You got unhappiness in your life," he scolds, as if he somehow has the right. "You're doing a big life crisis."

To avoid falling into the trap of getting pissed at the sheer _audacity_ of that statement (and almost certainly losing his precious Play Coins to the Swear Jar in the process), Gordon hones in on the actual information hidden in Benry's usual bullshit. "How the hell did you even put them up there?" he asks, before wincing in anticipation of a Play Coin penalty. Apparently, however, only "fuck" counts as worthy of the Swear Jar, because Coomer doesn't say anything. He shakes his head and goes on. "You're not tall enough to reach that shit, either. You're, like, maybe one entire inch taller than me."

"Bro, you're manlet? You got manlet problems? Gordon Freemanlet?" Benry asks, despite Gordon trying to hit him repeatedly with the broom. "That sucks, man. Hope you get well soon."

And then he picks up the mostly-empty cereal box and easily puts it right back on that top shelf that he shouldn't be able to even really touch. Gordon straightens, and even if he's only fast enough to watch Benry leave the kitchen with two fistfuls of floor Cheerios, he still gets a good enough look to finally notice.

"...Has Benry... _always_ been that tall?" he asks aloud, in the ensuing silence.

"...Uh, y-yeah, Mr. Freeman! He's—you gotta be tall to—uh, it's required for security...it said so in the—in the job application forms," Tommy says, fidgeting enough for Bubby to start grumbling quietly about improper Relaxation Heap etiquette. "He's, uh, Benry's totally fine!"

As he turns back around to see Tommy's plastered-on smile, Gordon's reminded of one more reason that, out of anyone currently living in his home rent-free, Tommy wouldn't be the one who tried to prank him by fucking with his Cheerios.

He's a _terrible_ liar.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite Gordon's best efforts, the topic doesn't come up again for the rest of the day. And a good portion of the day after—though, to be fair, he _was_ sleeping for most of the day after. He's not even pretending to have a decent sleep schedule anymore.

Tommy just keeps insisting that Benry's totally normal, and gets visibly stressed enough when pressed that it stresses _him_ out in turn, and he has to forcibly end the conversation before he has a heart attack or something. Coomer and Bubby either legitimately haven't noticed anything or are _pretending_ not to notice anything, but again, he's trying not to stress himself into an early grave. Instead, he does what he always does when he's faced with Bad Things Outside Of His Control—he pushes them away and tries desperately not to think about them.

He's been having to do that a lot, lately. He pushes _that_ thought away, too. _Focus on what's in front of you._

What's in front of him is the white concrete and blinding neon sign of a 24-hour Safeway. What's in front of him is also a vast, completely empty parking lot—it is two-thirty in the morning, after all—and the Science Team, staring at him expectantly. Oh, and also Benry, but at least he doesn't have the nerve to _expect_ something from him tonight.

 _Alright, so focusing on what's literally in front of you was a bust. Probably should've expected that._ "Okay, everybody, pop quiz! One more fuckin' pop quiz! What _three things_ are we here to get tonight?" he asks them.

"Several cases of Monster Energy drinks," Bubby says.

"Drugs and alcohol for the Big Party!" Coomer adds.

"Donkey Kong 64 for the Nintendo 64," Benry mumbles.

"Uh, that cereal you like?" Tommy guesses.

Gordon has taken this quiz time to lead them toward the automatic doors, because otherwise he'll just spend all night sitting on the concrete with his head in his hands. "Aaaand Tommy wins the prize! By default! Since he was the only one even _remotely_ close!" he says. Tommy doesn't brighten up as much as Gordon expected, seemingly distracted by something Benry's doing. Gordon is Looking Away. "Remember this. Please, for the love of god, it's three entire things. Please keep this in some place in your brains where you check for knowledge. We need _toilet paper,_ we need _Honey Nut Cheerios,_ and we need _more frozen meals_. Three things. Just three. And then we can all go home."

"Three things!" Coomer cheers.

"That's more than three things," Bubby notes. "Each frozen meal is an individual thing. If you want frozen _meals,_ that's a minimum of four things."

"A minimum of four things!" Coomer cheers.

Gordon pauses. "You know what? Fuck. That's fair. Okay, just...fuckin' get whatever frozen meals you like the most," he says, immediately trying not to regret it when he sees the look in Bubby's eyes as he and Coomer dash away with a full-sized shopping cart. "...Tommy, you're with me on the Cheerios and the toilet paper. And...ugh, fuck, can't leave _you_ alone, so Benry, you're with us too—"

"Oww," Benry says, convincingly enough for Gordon to actually turn around. "...Fuckin' cringe store you got, bro. Groceries for manlets only. Babies 'R' Us."

Gordon's eyes widen. Benry is rubbing his face, which he just smacked against the concrete wall _above the Safeway doors._ He has to be at least fifteen feet tall now. Tommy takes a quick step away from where he was apparently standing next to Benry, wearing maybe the least convincing smile Gordon's ever seen.

"What the _fuck,_ " Gordon states. "How...you know what, I don't want to _know_ how! I genuinely do not want to hear a word about whatever eldritch bullshit you have going on right now. Turn yourself fuckin' smaller again and stop acting like a jackass."

"...Whuh? Oh. Yeah, uh, no." Benry says, with teeth that look more like they belong on a shark than a human being. Gordon wonders, in what may or may not be a fit of paranoia, if that's going to extend to an ability to smell the blood that's rushing in his head. "Can't. S'on cooldown."

"So you _admit_ that you've been—!" Gordon tries to say, but he sees Tommy frantically shaking his head _no_ out of the corner of his eye. He forces himself to stop his accusatory pointing and turns to face the Safeway, getting Benry out of his vision entirely. _Push it down, don't think about it._ "Fine. Just...you can't _fit_ in here, so just. Sit outside or something. Tommy, come on, let's get the actual fucking groceries we need before the other two start breaking shit."

Tommy hesitates—Gordon _refuses_ to turn around and see why—but eventually he silently walks through the automatic doors with him, looking torn. Inside the deserted Safeway is a lone cashier who's staring in absolute shock at _the scene behind him that he's not thinking about._

"Howdy," Gordon greets, a weak attempt at lightening the mood. The cashier doesn't respond.

"Man, customer service today, huh?" Gordon asks Tommy, an even _weaker_ attempt at lightening the mood. Tommy doesn't respond, either. Gordon feels simultaneously like he wants to crawl into bed and like his skin wants to crawl off his body. He thinks he might be breathing too fast. He shoves that feeling down. _Don't think about it, don't think about it, deep breaths, don't think about it—_

"Hello, Gordon!" greets Dr. Coomer, pushing along a cart full of some kind of frozen lasagna throne that Bubby's currently lounging on. "I see you've also sensed the changes in Benry's DNA! Ah, they grow up so fast."

"... _Very_ fast," Bubby adds, scrambling to sit up on his throne. He's looking straight up at the ceiling. "You should probably go deal with that." Gordon doesn't want to look up, he doesn't want to think about it, he's not going to look up, he is _not,_ he's gonna just _push it down_ and _not look up—_

He looks up.

Benry's face, as massive as it was when he last fought them, leers down at him, clipping through the ceiling.

He can't push it down. He can't push _any_ of it down—

—his heart is beating like a jackhammer in his ears and oh _god_ Benry must be able to _hear it_ because he's _looking right at him_ and everything is too bright and too loud and too _much_ and he can hear the buzz of the blinding fluorescent lights and the stupid fucking grocery store music and the rapidfire shots of an arm-mounted gun that's firing his own fucking _fingernails_ and he can hear the endless deafening voice of bright neon colors that are appearing all around him and he's _trapped_ and he's _surrounded_ and he can't _move_ and he's going to _die_ right here—

—and it's too much input, and he has to close his eyes, but that makes it _worse_ , because in the darkness he feels cold gloved hands grabbing him by the arm and pulling out a blade and slicing through suit and skin and muscle and _bone_ and he'll never have that arm again, he'll never do anything again, they're going to kill him and his friends are watching and pointing and _laughing_ because they're the ones who _did_ this to him, that's the one who _did_ this to him—

—his hand is clenched in rage, his hand is being torn off his body, his hand is full of bullets and fire, his _body_ is full of bullets and fire, he opens his mouth to scream and all that comes out is the agonizing shriek of _bright red orbs._

Just as his throat starts to hurt, he hears the sound of every bit of glass in the building shattering to pieces. 

The silence that falls after that is deafening and wonderful.

Panting, he looks up at the hole he's blown in the ceiling, just long enough to see the arm-gun responsible melt seamlessly back into a hand made of flesh and bone. He looks around and finds that the Science Team is hiding behind the remaining grocery shelves. Benry's there, too, back to his usual size and completely covered in blood. His eyes are wider than Gordon's ever seen them.

"...Huh," Gordon says, as Black Mesa Sweet Voice leaks out of his mouth. "That's new."

Mercifully, that's when he passes out.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Has Benry always been that tall?"_

Benry's pretty sure he heard that one, except maybe with a few more pauses in it. Gordon's apartment isn't big enough for any of the shit anyone says to go unheard. He likes that a lot about Gordon's apartment. It's a feature he'd probably put on the back of the box. 7.8/10, good amount of sounds, too many shitty cereals.

Wait, no. 6.9/10. Nice.

He doesn't remember what he was thinking about earlier. Probably something that doesn't matter too much? He can't hold onto thoughts that don't matter. He's pretty sure Gordon gets really mad when he does that. He doesn't really understand why, but Gordon's always getting mad and yelling at him for a lot of things, so probably that's all it is. Case closed.

Oh, yeah, it's that he doesn't have a very good brain for remembering things that matter a lot to Gordon and he thinks are worth yelling about. Case reopened and then closed again. His brain's pretty bad in general. Very lukewarm. Bordering on cold.

He crams the remaining floor Cheerios into his mouth all at once. He's gotta play more Hot Brain PSP, then. It's his game of the year.

_"Turn yourself fuckin' smaller again and stop acting like a jackass."_

Benry doesn't even actually try to do that. He knows it won't work, and mostly says so. Then Gordon says some more stuff and turns around and stops looking at him and his cool sharky teeth, which sucks. He likes his cool sharky teeth.

He doesn't like being here. It's too...it's big. It's bigger than he is. Big and dark and nobody's home. He really doesn't like that. He feels a few more fangs crowd into his mouth, and everything else gets even smaller, but it's still way too big. Way too empty.

He feels his leg get grabbed by a very small hand. He looks down, focusing on that instead of this big shitty empty parking lot. It's Tommy, which is good, but Tommy looks upset, which is bad. Benry sends out precisely one single yellow orb of Sweet Voice. That always makes Tommy laugh.

Tommy doesn't laugh. "Are you...is this a Bad Place?" he asks, whispering enough that he doesn't think Gordon hears him. "Do you—do you wanna go home?" Yes, definitely. "I can go ask Mr. Freeman to take us back home?" Shit, fuck. 

Benry shakes his head rapidly. "No, don't...no doing that. That's quitting the game. You're pro gamer, don't quit your streak. We need Donkey Kong 64," he whispers back. He forces himself to step backwards, further into the parking lot. "You gotta go, bro. Find the hidden 5-Banana Rainbow Coin in the tall grass. I'm good out here." He gives Tommy a thumbs up and a smile full of fangs.

Tommy doesn't really look less upset than he did, but he hugs one of Benry's legs and goes into the Safeway with Gordon. 

Then he's alone.

He tries really hard to think about the feeling of Tommy hugging him before he went inside, but his brain's still not good enough to remember things even if he wants to remember them. He looks around for the one yellow orb he gave to Tommy, but that's faded, too. His brain sucks. He never remembers anything.

Well. That's kind of a lie.

His brain is remembering _something._ It's just a really shitty _something_ , and he doesn't want to think about it, so it doesn't count. He forgets everything else he doesn't want to think about. He tries really hard to do that here. 

He just ends up thinking about it, instead.

_"DON'T FUCK WITH THE SCIENCE TEAM!"_

Benry thinks that was a pretty cool last line for Coomer, as he floats up to his death. He thought the big _NOOOOO_ he went with was also cool. Like a big cinematic thing. He kind of wants to say so, because it'd be pretty funny to fuck with the mood here, but he thinks maybe they can't hear him over everything else making sounds right now. It's actually only getting louder for him, and he feels the utter agony of his fun new boss fight body getting all of its atoms annihilated. _Ow._

"Hey, turn down the noises," he mumbles, even though he definitely can't hear himself anymore. "S'kinda loud."

Somehow, something must be paying attention, because there's an even louder flash before everything goes silent. "Thanks."

He blinks the lights out of his eyes and looks around. He sees Gordon up above him, getting talked at by that weird suit guy. "Oh, nice view from down here," he calls out with a grin. "Bro! You just killed me! You're going to lose subscriber!"

Gordon doesn't say anything. Neither does the suit guy. He listens for a second, and he thinks they're arguing about Chuck E. Cheese. "Oh, cool, Tommy's birthday party's gonna be there," he says, as a memory floats back. "Hey, I don't think he invited you. Can I see your RSVP? You got RSVP?"

Gordon _still_ doesn't say anything. He doesn't even have that tension in his shoulders from when he's really aggressively Looking Away from something. Annoyed, Benry tries to float up there and clip into the room so they'll be able to hear him.

He falls backwards. "Hey, who...somebody reversed my controls." He tries going backwards to go forwards. He falls even further. 

"Uh, hey." He tries not moving at all. He keeps falling. "Wait, no, stop doing that!"

They can't hear him. He's falling further and further. He can see the bottom of the world floating up and away from him. "HEY, UH—GORDON, I NEED SOME HELP—"

He sees Gordon and the man in the suit walk through a portal and vanish.

Then he doesn't see anything else.

_"You should probably go deal with that."_

Benry blinks and finds himself with his head phasing through the supermarket ceiling. He feels a lot better with all of them looking at him. Though he thinks he's at his boss fight size now, and that'll make it hard to fit back in Gordon's 6.9/10 apartment. He still feels like this is a good size to be. He gives Gordon a big smile so he'll maybe look at his cool sharky teeth again.

Gordon yells in kind of a different way when he looks at his face in the ceiling, and when he holds his right arm up, it's back to being a gun. Benry didn't think very much about the fact that when he saw Gordon again after...That Thing That Happened...he'd had that arm that he lost in Black Mesa somehow. Benry's thinking about it a little more now. "...Hey, what happened to your arm?"

Gordon absolutely _unloads_ on him. That part's normal, though it does really fuck up this Safeway ceiling, and from the way everyone else is looking at him, he's probably getting really bloody. What isn't normal is that he's pretty sure Gordon's not actually looking at him, even though his eyes are looking at him. He's just screaming. 

What _really_ isn't normal is that the next breath that Gordon takes to scream comes out in a voice that isn't his. A voice that he can _see._ Benry jumps and lets out a few Sweet Voice orbs of his own, the kind of chill-out blue that's worked on Gordon before.

He thinks that might have just made this version of Gordon a lot angrier, because the colors coming out of his mouth turn into a long, ear-piercing stream of red. He kind of hears Dr. Coomer say something like "he's activated the Skeleton Frequencies!"

Tommy is trying to shout over the noise at him, too, his hands clapped firmly over his ears. He looks over and can make out the words "Benry", "small", and " _please!_ " Well, that _is_ the magic word. Benry nods, focuses—it's a lot easier when there's so much noise to distract him from wanting to be big—and finds himself at his usual size. 

"Oh, wait, shit." He also finds himself falling directly through the hole in the ceiling and crashing into the cereal isle. "...Didn't turn off the gravity." 

He's drowned out by the red orbs getting louder and higher, and then a bunch of glass breaking, and then no more loud noises. He climbs out of his pile of crushed boxes of Cheerios in time to watch Gordon change his hand back into a hand, say something that's half-words half-colors, and fall asleep.

"...Well, that was fucked up," Bubby notes after everything's settled, standing up and dusting himself off behind his pretty cool fortress of frozen pizzas. "Oh, and I think he committed a murder."

Coomer jumps through the fortress walls—Bubby makes a noise of outrage—and checks in on the cashier who is, yeah, definitely dead. He stares at the body in deep concentration before dramatically whipping off their hat, revealing a very familiar head. "Ah-ha! An escaped clone! No wonder my mind has become so full of knowledge about the rules of employment for an American supermarket chain founded in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho by Marion Barton Skaggs."

"Oh, excellent! We'll be getting our check in the mail soon, then," Bubby says, content. "In the meantime, I think we've encountered a prime looting opportunity." He starts scooping everything he can get his hands on into shopping carts. Coomer drags in more carts when they fill up their first one.

Tommy is standing next to Benry, who's standing over Gordon. He wants to ask Tommy a lot of things. He wants to ask if Gordon's always had the Sweet Voice, what it means if it's a new thing he just unlocked, why he threw this huge-ass tantrum in the middle of a Safeway for basically no reason. He tries to get his brain in order long enough to get any of those questions out into the air.

"Gordon Sleepman," are the words that Benry actually says. He pokes at Gordon. "Sleepy Feetman."

"...Yeah," Tommy agrees. "I think, um...I think we're gonna need some help to get back home." He puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. Sunkist appears next to them in a halo of soft orange light. Tommy gratefully scratches him behind the ears. "Sunkist, can you take us all back home with all the—all the groceries we need? Oh, and—and make sure Mr. Freeman gets back in bed, he's really...sleepy."

Sunkist's eyes begin to glow. Satisfied, Tommy takes Benry's hand. "You gotta—you _need_ to talk to Mr. Freeman about this, Benry. You need...you're both needing to talk about...a lot of stuff." 

Benry looks away, into the increasingly bright light covering the room. He can think of a lot of things to say. He doesn't want to, he doesn't _need_ to, it'll just make things worse if he tries, he's doing fine, clearly it's _Gordon_ who's got problems right now, not him—

"'Kay," is the word that Benry actually says. 

Tommy smiles for the first time all night, and then Sunkist takes them home.


	4. Chapter 4

For the first time in a long time, Gordon wakes up slowly. He notices his comforter first, soft and heavy, warm enough that he mostly just doesn't bother with a sheet anymore. He runs a hand over the pattern embroidered on the top, some swirly leaves that he'd once thought looked really classy, back when he cared about that. The pattern repeats just often enough that he can always find the same leaf twice, no matter how tired he is. 

His hand hits something that isn't the embroidery. He also becomes aware that someone is sitting on his bed. Reluctantly, he cracks an eye open.

And just like that, he's wide awake. He sits up fast enough that his entire body aches in protest. God, he feels like _dogshit._ "What the _fuck_ are you doing here," he demands, not even bothering to say it like a question.

Benry jumps, like he's startled, like he expects Gordon to believe anything can _startle_ him. "Huh? Wha—uh..." he begins, kicking his legs back and forth. "Just sittin'. Bro I am just si—I am just sitting here."

Gordon feels his eye twitch. "And how long have you just been—fucking _watching_ me. And _sitting_ there."

"Tommy said I gotta talk to you," Benry says instead of actually answering that. He swings both legs against the bed with a _thunk_ that makes Gordon flinch, as tightly wound as he is right now. "Said you gotta talk to me, too. We gotta...converse."

"What—and I cannot stress this enough—the _fuck_ would I even want to say to y—?!" His voice trails off into three bright blue orbs. Benry sings out a few of his own to match. He collapses back into his pillows, feeling like someone just punched him in the throat. "Oh."

"Uh-huh." Benry is looking at anything but him. Small mercies. "Man, your room looks—"

"Don't fuckin' insult my room," Gordon interrupts with a glare, resigning himself to this interaction by setting up his pillows so he can sit against them. He is resolutely not a fan of the vulnerability inherent in lying down while Benry's in the room with him. "Can't imagine that's what Tommy said this _conversation_ was supposed be about. If he really did put you up to this." 

Miraculously, this actually shuts Benry up—all he does is shrug. Gordon notices with no small amount of relief that Benry's back to his regular size. The thought of trying to have any kind of personal conversation with a grinning face full of jagged fangs...he runs his hands over the leaf pattern again, trying to calm down. His shoulders are burning with muscle tension. Fuck, he has to break this silence before he _explodes._

"So what the fuck happened to me—?"

"Why'd you get so mad—?"

Of course they'd both try to speak at the same time. Gordon runs his hands over his face, feeling a small bit of tension leave him when neither of them feel like the barrel of a gun. "We need a—we need a system to do this," he grumbles. "Fuck it. One at a time. We'll take turns. I'll go first."

"Why do you go first? My speed's higher than yours..." Benry whines. 

"I'm using Quick Attack," Gordon retorts on impulse, glaring through his fingers.

"I got Extreme Speed."

"Well now I'm gonna use _Fake Out._ So there. I'm going first."

Benry gives him an impressed nod, like Gordon's just passed some kind of test. He does realize, belatedly, how much he's just accidentally revealed about himself and how much space those games have taken up in his brain. He takes a deep breath and removes his hands from his face. "I'll ask again. What the fuck happened to me?"

Benry swings his legs, looking at the floor. "I dunno. You went in to get Donkey Kong 64 and did a real big yell at me. Fucked shit up in the whoooole Safeway. Used the skeleton Sweet Voice and all the windows and stuff got broke," he mumbles, almost coherently. "Not a good...s'bad name for a company. Unsafeway. Hazardway. Should've worn your big suit to go into the Hazardway."

Gordon glares, opening his mouth to ask for more details and less _bullshit_ , but Benry shakes his head and interrupts him. "I really dunno why you got the...why you got 'em. Didn't do that." If Gordon squints, he can pretend Benry looks more sincere than he usually does. He closes his mouth with a sigh. "...D'you...you like them? You like the colors or the...you like 'em?"

"Fuck no," Gordon says, on immediate instinct. Or at least he tries, but it actually comes out as a little song of green to yellow. Benry stares at it, apparently entranced. Gordon stares too, trying to figure out how it translates to words, or if Tommy really has just been making this up the whole time. He doesn't find an answer. He takes a deep breath and tries to repeat what he said using actual words this time.

"...I don't know," he says instead, for reasons unknown. "I think I liked them at some point, and then I really fucking hated them. For a _pretty solid reason._ So the reviews are a bit mixed." He watches the colors slowly fade away. "...I probably liked them better when they weren't actively trying to murder me." _God, that sounds fucked up. "Ohh, I like them aesthetically, even though they're deadly fucking weapons!"_ _You sound like a weird gun enthusiast._ He tries to think of a new question, tired of being criticized by his own goddamn brain. "Why do you ask?"

Gordon thought that was a pretty shitty, easy question, but apparently Benry doesn't think so, given how much time he spends swinging his legs against the bed before he answers. "...Dunno," he finally answers. "Think you said my voice was nice once. Fightin' the...fightin' something. Don't remember. Look it up on Wikipedia later." He shrugs, continuing in a mumble. "Pretty lame of you to say that. Lame compliment. Sayin'...voice is nice? What, you wanna kiss about it?"

Gordon wheezes out a laugh of utter disbelief. " _What?_ What did you just say?" 

Benry looks around the room, confused. "Huh?"

Gordon shakes his head, still smiling. "God, ask your—that doesn't count as a question. I'll be nice. Ask your thing."

"...You're never nice," Benry mumbles, looking at him with what might be genuine confusion. "Never nice to me ever. Why're you...how come you're always mean to me all the time?"

The smile drops off Gordon's face. "You cut my fucking arm off."

Benry has the nerve to almost look hurt. "...Nuh-uh. Soldiers did that. Fuck the troops."

"You _brought_ me to the soldiers," Gordon growls, through gritted teeth. "You orchestrated the whole fucking _betrayal!_ I'm surprised you're even _admitting_ that it _happened,_ considering how many times you _asked_ me about it!"

"Got it back," Benry points out, looking at his right hand clutching the blanket. "Not so bad if it grew back. S'like a Geico tail. Fifteen minutes, fifteen percent—"

"Just shut the fuck _up!_ " Gordon yells. Something in his mouth tastes like burning metal. "Shut _up_ with your _bullshit!_ What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?! That was the worst fucking pain I've ever felt in my _life._ I can't even sleep at _night_ anymore because every time it gets too dark I can _feel my arm being ripped off my body!_ " He spits the something out in Benry's stupid fucking face. It manifests as the shriek of one red orb, still loud enough that Benry flinches. He's liking this Sweet Voice thing more and more—he never managed to get Benry to flinch before he manifested this eldritch bullshit. 

Benry just looks at him for a while after that as the blood roars in his ears. No, wait, he's looking at his arm, which—is a gun again. One that's threatening to burn a hole in his comforter. God _damnit._ He likes that comforter too much to waste it on being pissed at Benry. He forces his breathing to slow down, waits to stop feeling so lightheaded, watches the metal turn back into skin.

"...Killed me," Benry says quietly.

Gordon is too tired for this shit. "What?"

"Didn't...s'fine that you did that. Done it lots of times, doesn't hurt so much when you're ready for it. Just funny, mostly. Good comedy...funny joke moments compilations on YouTube," he explains, in a voice that sounds even flatter than usual. "After the big fight, though...saw you. Talkin' to the guy in the suit. Talked stuff about Charles Entertainment Cheese."

He can only think of one person he talked to about that fucking restaurant. "Wh—Tommy's dad? You saw me talk to him?" he asks, eyebrows furrowing when Benry nods. "No, that's not—you weren't there. You definitely weren't there. I would've remembered you being there."

Benry looks away. "Didn't _hear_ me. Tried to say hi. Thought you were just doin' real rudeboy hours, doin' the whole _waaaah I don't see iiiit I'm gonna Look Awaaaay_ bit," he says, doing his shitty imitation voice. He keeps going before Gordon has time to yell at him again. "Wasn't it, though. Just couldn't hear me say shit. Too far up. Gotta get close so you can hear the...I had lots of good bits, man. Would've...big laugh track like Bazinga."

"...Couldn't get up there." Benry kind of shivers, and Gordon actually _sees_ him make himself taller. "Fell allllll the waaaay downnnn. Not s'posed to _ever_ go all the way down. Not so good place to be. Nothin' to...no passport'll help down there, man. Don't worry 'bout...not havin' yours." He shows off his regrown fangs in a half-hearted grin. Gordon feels vaguely sick, but he can't think of what the fuck to _say._

Apparently his silence wasn't the right answer. Benry's grin fades and he looks at the floor. "...Got stuck down there. Didn't see me, didn't hear me, didn't...none of it _worked_. Dunno how much...time didn't either. Lots of time down there with _nothin'._ Sucked. Yelled a lot for—" His voice cuts out. "—didn't answer. Nobody answers. Anyway...dunno if I did any big cools to break outta there once I got out. Hope so. S'cool to do cool." 

He shrugs, then looks back over and takes in Gordon's expression. "Bro, you good? You look...you got crumbles? Crumbly man? Hey, calm down." He sings a line of blue orbs right towards Gordon's mouth.

They're intercepted by Gordon's own song, which goes from firetruck-red to bluish-gray. God knows what _that_ means. He shakes his head. "Fuck. Gordon needs words, gimme back my words..." he says aloud, and apparently that's the magic spell to make his words come back. "Okay. Okay. _Fuck_ , man. Why...what made you _tell_ me that?"

Benry shrugs again. "Gotta do the questions battle," he says, almost as nonchalantly as usual. "You were all...askin' what was wrong with me. So. Took my turn."

Then, Benry leans in close. His voice drops to a whisper. " _Welcome to my twisted miiiind..._ "

Despite everything—hell, maybe _because_ of everything—that startles a laugh out of Gordon. More than one, actually. It's helped by the fact that Benry joins in with his fucking goblin cackle, which has a long history of sending him into unexpected hysterics. 

"H-holy shit," Gordon stutters, when he can get a breath in. "God, we're...we're just kind of both in this awful boat, huh? Welcome to our twisted minds. Here's our Hot Topic fanpage with all their lyrics." 

He pauses. "Shit, wait, Hot Topic's the store. I forgot—I forgot all the bands—"

"Ohhh! You fucked up now! Idiot can't even remember what bands are!" Benry taunts as Gordon falls into wheezy laughter. "Typo in the group chat, gonna _get_ your ass!" 

"Shut up! Verbal typos don't count!" Gordon protests, throwing one of his pillows. Benry catches it in his mouth. "Hey! Spit that out, I _sleep_ on that!"

"BBBBB." Benry spits the pillow out. "Whoa, big science nerd, sleeps on things. You a nerd, bro? You got...degrees? Science? You got nerd degrees?"

" _Yes._ You know that! I graduated from—"

"Nerd alert," Benry interrupts, sounding alarmed. "You've been nerd? All this time, man? Never told me?"

Well, shit. Benry has just enough of a shitty memory that there's a solid chance he genuinely forgot. "I _explicitly_ told you. I have mentioned my physics degree probably a hundred times to you and near you."

Benry shakes his head sadly, almost completely ignoring what Gordon just said. "Can't believe you've been nerd. We gotta break up now! Can't date nerds. Personal...I got philosophies."

Gordon wheezes. "Since when were we _dating?_ "

Benry pauses. Well, really, he opens his mouth and says no words, but Gordon can pretend those are pauses. "...Huh?"

"Did you just say you were dating me?" Gordon presses.

"Whoa, dude, gay of you," Benry says instantly, like it's a reflex. "You gay? You got your gay? Got gay rights?"

Gordon tries to say something snarky in response to that. To his crushing embarrassment, what comes out instead is a literal rainbow of orbs. 

Benry looks like Christmas has come early. "You got rare...rarest power. Black Mesa Gay Voice."

Gordon resists the urge to hit Benry with his remaining pillows, considering what happened to the last one. "Fuck off. You will die in seven days."

"Black Mesa Gay Boys." Benry pronounces it wrong so that it rhymes.

"Leave my house. Leave my room and then leave my entire house," Gordon demands. "I'm fucking banishing you. You're like a shitty vampire and I'm banishing you from my house forever."

Benry studies the room carefully. "...Apartments aren't a house."

"Oh my _god—_ go! Get out! Conversation over, we're done! Tell Tommy we're done!" Gordon says, physically getting up out of bed to shove Benry out his door. Benry resists just enough so that it's annoying (but not impossible) to push him. "I need to recover from the fuckin'...conversational whiplash I just got today. From you."

"Aww, no kiss goodbye?" Benry pleads, standing in the doorway.

"Maybe later," Gordon says without thinking.

The image of Benry's sharp-toothed grin sticks in Gordon's mind long after he slams the door and goes back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i put Actual Thought into every single instance of the Black Mesa Sweet Voice™ in this fic but then also realized that neither gordon nor benry really ever actually translate it in canon. F
> 
> so i'm just gonna put all my translations from now on in these little end notes. enjoy!
> 
> \- "[...]the fuck would I even want to say to y—?!" His voice trails off into three bright blue orbs.  
> bright blue means '...say to you'
> 
> \- Or at least he tries, but it actually comes out as a little song of green to yellow.  
> green to yellow means 'gordon says fuck no'
> 
> \- It manifests as the shriek of one red orb, still loud enough that Benry flinches.  
> bright blood red means 'want you dead'; also what it meant in chapter 2
> 
> \- He sings a line of blue orbs right towards Gordon's mouth.  
> line of blue means 'calm down, you!'; also what it meant in chapter 3
> 
> \- [...]Gordon's own song, which goes from firetruck-red to bluish-gray.  
> firetruck to bluish-gray means 'what the fuck, are you okay?'
> 
> \- To his crushing embarrassment, what comes out instead is a literal rainbow of orbs.   
> rainbow lights mean GAY RIGHTS


	5. Chapter 5

It isn't until they're all having breakfast the next morning—well, technically the next afternoon, bordering on evening—that Gordon remembers.

"Oh _shit_ ," he says, drawing everyone's attention away from whatever they're eating (today's meal is slightly burnt freezer pizza and an upsettingly vast quantity of Lucky Charms). He gives Coomer a guilty look. "Coomer, I'm—shit, I didn't let you know before I passed out. Did it do the whole...atom by atom...?" He trails off, not particularly wanting to relive that memory in detail. "Fuck, I'm sorry."

"Not to worry, Gordon!" Coomer says with entirely too much cheer. "I believe your big 'Temper Tantrum' within the Safeway has had some delightful effects on the universe. Namely, the changes in your DNA have significantly reduced the number of times I have felt myself be ripped apart at the atomic level when you go to sleep." 

"...Uh," Gordon says, intelligently. "I mean—that's...fucked up? That's fucked up. Did you say my whole _DNA_ changed? You mean like—" He looks at Benry. Benry's bowl is filled entirely with Lucky Charms marshmallows, which he then pours into his mouth all at once. He looks away from Benry.

Coomer nods. "Congratulations on your alien puberty, Gordon! We're all very proud of you."

"Oh, that's disgusting," Bubby says, looking at him like he's become a weird slug. Gordon checks, just in case, but he still looks fine. "I'm not giving out any talks about the alien birds and the alien bees."

"It _is_ quite a revolting topic," Coomer notes, thinking for a moment. "Ah! Gordon will simply have to search it up on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

"There's no more servers of—at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia..." Tommy adds. "They all exploded 'cause of...violence."

"Very fun violence," Bubby says, looking smug.

"Ah. Seems like you're pretty fucked then, Gordon!" Coomer says, without missing a beat.

Gordon is wheezing into his empty bowl. "Ghh—god, what the—so what the fuck do I _do_ about this? Is there anything _to_ do? Like—listen, you can't take me back to puberty. I did my time, man," he declares. "Hell, I did it _twice._ Fucked up my puberty the first time and I had to do it all over again." _Wait, shit, that might be revealing too much—_

"Gordon, we've _all_ gone through the trials of Second Puberty," Bubby notes with mild annoyance as he looks critically at the pizzas to find the perfect slice. "You don't have to tell us about the details."

The rest of them nod, except Benry, who apparently needs to be using his head and neck right now to eat an entire half of a pizza like some sort of hellish sharp-toothed pelican. When he finishes his grim task and catches Gordon watching him with horrified fascination, he stares back. "What? Huh? Like what you see?" he asks, grinning with sauce-stained fangs. "S'not polite to stare. Rude. Big rude behavior. Biiiig rude dude alert." He pauses for a second, perhaps to catch up on the conversation. "Oh. Yeah, fuck a gender. What, you don't? You got gender? You support trans rights, bro?"

"I _am_ trans," Gordon insists, feeling a smile fighting its way onto his face regardless of the indignation the rest of him is going through.

"He's dodging the question," Bubby stage-whispers to Coomer.

Gordon puts his face in his hands to hide how big his smile is, hearing a few notes of song slip out through his fingers. God, of _course_ this would be one of the things that ties them all together. _Take that, anxiety._

"Hey, we don't—we don't need to worry!" Tommy cheers, prompting Gordon to glance up at a table full of Sweet Voice. "Blue, pink, and white means Mr. Freeman says 'trans rights!'"

Gordon laughs out so many more orbs that he thinks he might be putting himself in danger of passing out. Benry grins and adds some orbs of his own. When Gordon gets enough of his common sense back to stop singing out all his oxygen, he thinks they actually look kind of beautiful. 

Well. Maybe he doesn't have that much of his common sense back, if that's what he thinks about these things. He gasps out a breath, sobered up enough to do so. "...Glad we...god _damn._ Glad that's settled," he manages, after a couple false starts. "What the fuck were we even talking about?"

"Transing your gender," Bubby replies.

"...Uh..." Tommy attempts.

"Mined Craft," Benry says.

"Your revolting alien puberty!" Coomer adds.

Oh, yeah. "Alright, so out of _those_ , I think probably we should address Dr. Coomer's contribution," he says. "If...okay, even if there _was_ a Wikipedia article on _alien puberty,_ there isn't one anymore, we got that. Established. So...is there, like...should I be _doing_ something about...this?" He gestures vaguely to the dissipating colors.

"You gotta...you gotta learn to _harness_ it, Mr. Freeman!" Tommy suggests, looking very excited by the idea. "You gotta do a great power! It's the—it's the big power, big responsibilities! Just like Spider Hyphen Man from the movie from Sony Pictures Animations."

"TRAIN AND FIGHT, GORDON!" Coomer yells, probably reflexively.

"Just remember to do it somewhere _else,_ " Bubby complains. "You're ruining my perfect pizza with your musical nonsense." He holds up a chunk of what looks like flat charcoal, and then eats it anyway with an honestly terrifying _crunch_.

"That's—how am I supposed to just _harness_ this? I didn't see any, like, _popups_ that told me to press all the buttons or whatever," Gordon says, briefly distracted by wondering what Darnold's been up to lately. Probably something more normal than this. "I barely knew how I did _that._ This is, like, so far out of my league that it's not even the same sport anymore. This is trying to play baseball in a hockey rink."

"Don't talk about sports in my presence ever again," Bubby warns, gesturing threateningly with a cereal spoon. "Absolutely terrible."

"Indeed, Gordon. You _know_ this is a Jock-Free Zone," Coomer scolds, giving Bubby a reassuring pat on the back.

"I'm just gonna ignore that and move on," Gordon says with a snort. "Alright, everybody, focus. It's thinking time. _How_ am I going to—"

"Dunno how to do big cool? Idiot? Didn't read how to cool manuals?" Benry interrupts.

Gordon glares at him. "There's no way that there are actual _manuals_ for this—"

"Can't even read...what happened to your big nerd degree, huh? Didn't teach you reading writing 'rithmetic at the Big College? Shitty baby school doesn't even teach you how to read manual..." Benry laments, shaking his head.

"It was _MIT,_ and they taught me how to fucking _read—_ " Gordon sputters.

"Gotta...teach you my own self..." Benry mumbles, quietly enough that Gordon almost can't hear him. "'Cause you can't read so now I gotta teach you. Fucked up but true."

Gordon's mouth shuts with a click. "What?" he asks. This was not one of the possible answers he'd come up with for this issue. "You're going to teach me how to— _you._ You, Benry, are going to _teach_ me things."

"...Huh?" Benry asks, confused. "Why'd you say that? I dunno how teaching works. Now you wanna have me do teaching things...? Maaan."

" _You_ were the one who—!"

"So it's settled!" Coomer exclaims. "How wonderful! Gordon, you'll go find a nice comfortable location so that you can learn how to use your new anomalous abilities from none other than our own resident anomaly, Bobert."

"Wait—Benry doesn't even—"

"Yooooo, you gotta call me _Professor_ Bobert now."

"That is _decidedly_ not what I'm gonna call you—"

"Mr. Freeman, why're you not—you gotta respect people's real official titles, it's—it's not nice otherwise!"

"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up of you. The man's got tenure."

" _What_ —"

"'Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program discontinuation...'"

Gordon doesn't know what the "official" translation is for the light brown orbs that slip out of his mouth as he firmly plants his face on the table. The _aaaaaaaaaaaaah_ sound by itself is probably getting his point across, though.

_Well, at least there's no way in hell that Benry's going to remember this later._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trans FREAKIN rights, babey
> 
> \- Gordon doesn't know what the "official" translation is for the light brown orbs that slip out of his mouth[...]  
> caramel means 'i'm in hell'


	6. Chapter 6

Gordon is going to reach through time and punch his past self in the face. He should _know_ better than to challenge the universe like that.

Apparently, all it took was the distraction of having to do all the goddamn dishes after their breakfast and/or dinner for Tommy to hatch the _horrific_ idea of taking Coomer and Bubby on a walk with him so Benry and Gordon could have a private teaching space. Well. Technically, he thinks they're taking Sunkist on the walk, but still. 

Now they've vanished into the night doing _who knows what_ , and Benry's looking around at his completely barren living room. Gordon has no idea where his furniture went, but he _does_ know that it's the same place those three will be going if they don't get it back when this is over.

Gordon takes his head out of his hands, grits his teeth, and forces himself to Do This Shit. "Alright, so what—"

Benry is already interrupting him. "Bro, you gotta call me Professor Benry."

Gordon regrets. Just in general. "I thought it was Professor Bobert."

"What? That's not my name," Benry scolds, offended. "You forget names? Forgetful little baby? No object permanence? Imagine forgetting things...can't relate. Got photographs memory. All the time, all the time."

Gordon hisses out a stream of red to blue, which produces a much prettier sound than the enraged cursing he was going for. "So are you actually planning to teach me anything tonight, or are you just gonna fuck around like always?" 

Benry stares at him expectantly. After an infuriatingly long moment, Gordon realizes why. "... _Professor_ Benry," he spits.

"Gonna teach you all the everything. World's Best Teach," Benry responds once Gordon's used his stupid fucking title. "I know how to do it now. I got certificates and everything." He reaches into a pocket and pulls out an extremely crumpled piece of paper. Gordon squints, trying to read any of the words—

"Is that my fucking degree?!" Gordon demands, making a grab for it. Benry quickly stuffs it back in his pocket. "Give that _back,_ you asshole!"

"You gotta _earn_ the knowledge back," Benry says solemnly, hitting Gordon in the face with those calming orbs when he reaches out to attack him. "It's like real teaching, you gotta make bargains. Gotta pay to win." 

"Kiss my ass," Gordon attempts to say. Instead, it's a stream of metallic yellow—oh, no, wait, he gets this one. It's brass, rhymes with ass. Shit, maybe Tommy really does understand Sweet Voice. He shakes his head and tries again. "...Gordon needs his words, give Gordon back his words, Gordon needs to tell someone to kiss his ass and he can't _do_ that if there's no _words_ —okay, there we go. Kiss my ass."

"Bro, for real? Gay of you," Benry says, leaning in close.

Gordon instantly slaps his hand on Benry's face, stopping his progress. "Cut that shit out," he warns. Benry responds by licking his hand, which forces Gordon to yank it back, frantically wiping it on his pants. " _Fuck,_ that's _disgusting,_ just...fuckin'...teach me something, you jackass! Let's skip to the goddamn lessons!"

"...What?" Benry asks. Before Gordon can go completely apeshit, he straightens up and nods importantly. "Oh yeah, stop...no more horseplayin'. You're a bad student, distracting the teacher. Got educations to order up. We gotta get uuuhhhhh..." His voice trails off into a stream of bright teal. He pokes one of the orbs a few times until something about it satisfies him. "That'll do good. Yeah. Do that for me? Do those?"

"What, like on purpose?" Gordon asks, bewildered. "I don't know how to do it manually,that's like the whole point of this bullshit. You have to actually _teach_ me first."

"Do those for me now, please?" Benry insists.

Gordon gives him a dubious glare, but figures this will go faster if he makes the attempt. He tries to think about what those teal orbs actually _do_ —in general, the powers these things have seem inconsistent at best—and opens his mouth to try and sing some out. " _Aaaaaaahhhhh_ —SHIT." _Jesus fucking Christ, you sing like a dying baboon._ "That was nothing, that didn't—extremely bad job." 

"S'cause you're thinkin' too loud," Benry says, studying him with a frankly uncomfortable degree of intensity. "Usin' your big nerd brain waaaay too much. Stop thinkin' big loud thoughts."

"And how exactly am I supposed to just _stop thinking_? Riddle me that," Gordon snarks, feeling his face heating up from how shitty his actual singing voice sounds. "I don't have a goddamn off switch for my _brain_."

"Gotta do...no thoughts, head empty. No loud thinks. No...big noises. Y'know?" Benry "instructs", completely incoherently. Gordon does not know, and shakes his head in utter confusion. Benry frowns and tries again. "S'like...when you get big mad. _Big_ big mad. You're just doin' big yells and...big yells are the whole thing. The whole think. No thoughts, head angry. S'like that."

With an honestly heroic effort, Gordon attempts to parse that into comprehensible information. "...So, what, I need to be so pissed off I can't even think just to send out the fuckin' orbs?" he asks. "I don't think I can...alright, _legally_ I might be able to do that, but it seems pretty completely not worth it given the fuckin' aneurysm that's gonna give me in a week."

"Huh? Noooo! That's fucked _up_ , bro. You got problems of...you got problems," Benry scolds, immune as usual to Gordon's glare. "It's...the weird stuff's gonna come out whenever there's big mad or big sad or big...glad. S'just how it happens. Gonna do that _every_ one of the...every time the big feelings happen. No messin' with that."

Gordon has stopped glaring at Benry, largely because he is closing his eyes in what he suspects is either exasperation or despair. Probably both. "Great. Yet another thing that's completely out of my control! Love to hear that."

"What, you're control freak? Gotta control everything all the time? Fucked up of you," Benry says with an indifferent shrug. Just like that, Gordon's back to glaring. "S'just dramatic, mostly. Makes for big cool guy moments! You got too many worries. You wanna know to do the cool stuff when _you_ wanna do it...don't gotta be such big worry man all the time. Just gotta...feel a li'l bit. Li'l baby feelings." He sings out the same line of teal as before. "Do tiny baby feelings."

"How do I know what _teal_ is supposed to feel like?" Gordon asks instead of trying right away, out of spite. And maybe because he also doesn't want to have Benry make fun of his shitty singing voice if he can't do this again. It was probably just luck that Benry didn't do that last time, and he does _not_ trust his odds for another round.

"What?" Benry asks before giving _another_ shrug. "Not gonna be an exact—we're doing an art, not a science? Science is for idiot nerds. Go feel a teal."

" _'Go feel a teal'_ , he says," Gordon grumbles, but sure, he'll give this bullshit a try. He takes a deep breath and tries to remember what he was thinking when his words turned into colors earlier tonight. He... _thinks_ he has a pretty good visualization, after a minute. He inhales, opens his mouth, and...

... _Immediately_ notices Benry's sticking a bright blue tongue out at him. Whatever Gordon was thinking about goes directly out the window. He makes a noise that sounds like—

* * *

_He finds himself in a place that Isn't._

_There's a tightrope behind him, below him, stretching off into Somewhere. He's so far out that even Somewhere looks like it's barely Anywhere._

_It's a blur of hazy human memory. It's textures unloading to save processing power. It's both. It's neither._

_But that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?_

_He starts thinking of the tightrope as his tightrope, his path._

_The tightrope Isn't, either, but it gets a little closer to Something That Is with his impulse to claim it._

_That's hardly a new concept, really. He walks his tightrope. His tightrope helps him. His friends help him._

_His tightrope ends. There's a wall, there's Nowhere, there's the loading zone at the end of the level—_

_the dead end that's meant to stop you in your tracks so it can take you somewhere entirely new._

_He raises a hand to knock at the door. Through the window, he sees Something Else._

_He sees a circle, a return. He sees that the tightrope he walks is the edge of a coin, going around and around, always and forever._

_He sees that he's safe, embraced by routine. He sees himself open his mouth to sing and hears his own voice, unaltered._

_He sees a line, forging ahead. He sees that the tightrope he walks is a path that reaches for Somewhere Else, always and forever._

_He sees that he's learning, embraced by exploration. He sees himself open his mouth to sing and hears what color sounds like._

_He sees himself. He doesn't know if he Is or Isn't._

_"But that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?" he asks himself._

_"You're just like them. Pixels on a screen, words on a page, data in a machine," he tells himself._

_"You're not as Real as you think you are. You're Nothing, and you're Nowhere."_

_"But so what? That's how Everything started. You're a physicist, aren't you? You know about the Big Bang."_

_"Everything came from the choice to stop being Nothing. So if you want to be Something, that's all you have to do, too."_

_"The world around you doesn't make you Real. Your choices do."_

_"...I did choose this path for a reason," he adds, as the door cracks into something that Isn't Yet._

_"Even if the reason's not always Real enough for me to remember. Even if this whole place isn't Real enough for me to remember."_

_Through the widening cracks in the door, he sees Something, and it looks like a shark-toothed smile._

_"I chose to become a scientist because I wanted to_ learn."

* * *

—a noise that sounds like a string of teal lights.

"Oh fuck...!" Gordon says, and it comes out as words, like he wanted. He sings the same exact colors, probably starting to smile like an idiot. And then, for the fun of it, he feels a fleeting memory of something else, and the next set of orbs are _brass means kiss my ass_. He raises his arms in victory, Sweet Voice turning into laughter. "Hey, I fuckin'—I got that to _work!_ Nailed that shit!"

" _Niiice,_ " Benry says with a wide grin full of shark teeth that can't even bother Gordon right now. "Bro, you solved the big riddle! It only took you a billion super idiot fuckups before you got the big one."

"Shut the fuck up!" Gordon replies, but he can't even be mad enough right now to say it with the usual bite. "Wait, hold on—" His next orbs are navy blue and bounce right into Benry's face. He pauses for a moment. "Shit, how does 'shut the fuck up' turn into navy blue?"

Benry opens his terrible maw and eats one of the blue orbs whole. After a second, he nods in understanding. "Navy blue means 'shut fuck, you,'" Benry recites. "Pretty shit grammar. No wonder you lost your big school paper."

"It's a _degree,_ and you took it," Gordon accuses, though he thinks the indignant tone he's going for is not helped by the smile still stuck on his face. "So hand it over now, _Professor_. I'm master of the singing alien orbs, class dismissed." He holds his right hand out expectantly.

Benry takes him by the wrist, instead. He tries and fails not to flinch; Benry thankfully doesn't seem to notice. "Nuh-uh. We gotta do...you gotta have the other thing. Pros Tactic for Gamers of Online," he says. "You only know how to do big ol' MegaMan shooty hand. You gotta do a diversity. Gotta learn...uhh..." Benry gives up on finding whatever word he's looking for, and just holds up his other hand. Gordon sees Benry's skin shudder and _melt_ until he's grown a set of thick claws. "Yeah. S'cool shit hours."

Gordon's blood runs cold, freezing his smile on his face. The words _no, fuck no, GOD no_ bubble in his throat, but for reasons un-fucking-known there's an image of Benry's smile sticking in his mind, and it comes out as: "...why."

Benry tilts his head to the side. "'Cause it's fun? Fun cool bro activity? You don't like havin' fun activity time with your bros?" He wiggles his claws in Gordon's face. Gordon Does Not See It, he is Looking Away. Benry huffs, but at least when Gordon peeks back at him, both of his hands are hands again. "Why you gotta be all weird about it? You get to be big 'n' pointy. It's real cool."

 _Fuck, I don't want to talk about this._ "I don't want to fucking talk about th—"

"You'll get your shitty school paper back if you tell me," Benry interrupts. "Then you can go back to stupid fancy Gordon Degreeman."

Gordon chokes. "Gordon _Degreeman?_ "

Benry stares at him, apparently not so easily distracted by his own terrible name joke. "C'monnn."

Gordon opens his mouth to say a lot of things: mostly insults, alongside fervent cursing with a solid portion of wordless noises of exasperation, anger, hopefully not too much fear. There's a solid chance, given what Benry said about the Sweet Voice coming in uncontrollably with wild emotions, that he'd break some of his windows with a Skeleton Frequency or two.

Then his idiot brain notices that Benry's still casually holding his wrist and says _oh, that's actually kind of nice,_ and despite his best efforts his anger slips through his fingers like sand. He sighs out a few low-pitched dark red orbs. 

"...It's not like it's that complicated," he lies, looking away. "It's just more fuckin'...nightmare bullshit. The whole final boss fight you did...I kept seeing you _show up_ in my house for a while after we all left Black Mesa, even before you actually manifested in my goddamn living room. Thought you were gonna tell me that getting out was all just a trick to fuck with my head, and then everything would transform back into that _fucking_ cavern. Only this time—" _I'm alone, and you kill me._

He shuts up—he's said way too much, and he knows it. An embarrassingly large part of him is bracing for Benry to let go of him, especially given what he's said about what _he_ went through after that stupid fight. _Yeah, you're scared of fangs and claws when Benry got sent to some kind of sensory deprivation void because YOU killed HIM. Nice one, idiot._

Benry lets go, but it's only to shift his grip to Gordon's hand instead of his wrist. "...Didn't mean to...wait. Shitty. Bad reasons. Restart mission," he says, stumbling over his words. "Didn't wanna...uh. Shit. Also bad. Words bad. Bbbbb...uhh. I can't...'m not good at thiiisss." The whine turns into a stream of sandy brown to ocean blue. They both stare at it, but if Benry knows more than Gordon about translating Sweet Voice, he doesn't say anything to prove it. 

Benry grimaces and sticks his tongue out, like this conversation tastes bad. "Bllghgh. Uh...won't...not ever gonna do that again. No big fights. Didn't like it. Wasn't...not so fun like I wanted," he manages, eventually.

Gordon's face is on fire, but the orbs escaping his mouth are ice-blue. He clears his throat until he's reasonably sure he can talk in words again. "...Uh. Shit. You promise?"

"Huh?" Benry asks, giving Gordon a brief heart attack. "Oh. Uh, yeah." He nods entirely too many times, stretching the bit on long enough that Gordon can't hold in his laughter. Benry grins, and then looks over at the fact that, yes, they are really still holding hands. His eyes widen and he points his other hand at him, opening his mouth to—

"Say absolutely fucking _nothing_ ," Gordon threatens, putting a stop to this right the fuck now.

Benry keeps his mouth shut for nearly one entire second. "...Absolutely fucking nothing."

Gordon yells red and blue orbs at him. Benry eats one of them and wrinkles his nose. "Aw gross, you did a cherry! Shitty piss flavor! Shittiest one ever!" he complains, before immediately trying to eat the rest. "F to your tastebuds, bro. That's what the F stands for in your name. Feetman's an acronym and the F is for pay respects."

"First: fake grape is _way_ worse than fake cherry, I'll die on that hill," Gordon begins, to defend his honor. "Second: what the actual fuck are you _talking_ about?"

Benry is silent for a long few moments. When Gordon impatiently shakes their linked hands, Benry nods decisively. "Whuh? Yeah, go, uh, we're doing new thing. New teachy thing!" he declares. "You gonna learn how to do the big teeth? You wanna do big teeth? Be pointy? Or tall. Big large. No more Gordon Freemanlet."

"Fuck, wait, I'm not actually ready for—" Gordon stops.

Benry seems to know what he's thinking. "You could reach your awful shit cereals on the big boy shelf."

"...Shit, I _could_ reach my cereals on the big boy shelf," Gordon echoes in wonder, minus the completely unwarranted criticism of his Honey Nut Cheerios. "Damn. _Damn._ That's actually a game-changer right there."

Gordon takes a deep breath. "Okay. Alright. So. No sharp teeth or claws or...fuckin'...additional limbs or whatever right now for this teaching thing. Or ever? Maybe? We'll go with 'right now' and keep my options open, I guess," he relents. He grabs Benry's other hand, taking a pretty sizable amount of joy from seeing _him_ blush for a change, rather than the other way around. "But holy shit, if you can teach me how to be taller _without_ that monster shit, uh...I'll be in your debt, I guess? You'll get one free Gordon Favor. I'd do Play Coins, but I need those fuckers for—"

Benry cuts Gordon off by singing a teal orb into his face, distracting him from whatever other bullshit he was going to ramble about. "Teal means 'you got deal.'"

" _Fuck_ yes. Let's do this." _Please don't let me regret this._

For once in Gordon's life, the universe listens. 

The rest of the Science Team returns from their late-night walk to find Gordon triumphantly putting his Cheerios on the highest shelf in the kitchen. And then, almost immediately, much less triumphantly banging his head on the ceiling in front of everyone. He's embarrassed, excited, and wheezing with a rainbow of laughter. 

And for now, that means regret's not on his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Gordon hisses out a stream of red to blue[...]  
> red to blue means 'i hate you'
> 
> \- His voice trails off into a stream of bright teal.  
> teal to aqua means 'yeah can i get uuuhhh'
> 
> \- He sighs out a few low-pitched dark red orbs.  
> red like wine means 'alright, fine'
> 
> \- The whine turns into a stream of sandy brown to ocean blue.  
> color of the ocean shore means 'i won't hurt you anymore'
> 
> \- Gordon's face is on fire, but the orbs escaping his mouth are ice-blue.  
> icy blue means 'shit, thank you'
> 
> \- Gordon yells red and blue orbs at him.  
> red AND blue still means 'i hate you' but in a less serious teasing sort of way


	7. Chapter 7

His clock says it's 2:23 AM when he wakes up with a strangled cry, one hand clenched over his right arm to make sure it's still there. By 2:27, he remembers that these nightmares were why he fucked up his sleep schedule in the first place. The only reason he fell asleep tonight was that he'd exhausted himself during Benry's lessons on alien powers. On impulse, at 2:30, he sings out a few of those blue orbs that Benry's used before to get him to calm down. They don't do much more than light up the room a little.

Which is why that's the exact minute when Gordon realizes that Benry is standing in the darkness of his room and staring at him while he sleeps. He tries and fails to shoot up out of bed, instantly tangled in his comforter. "Wh—Benry, what the hell are you _doing_ here?" he demands, trying to get his sleepy limbs to cooperate.

Benry lets out a long string of yellow, which does light up the room a lot more. Gordon's body betrays him by feeling much better about that. "...Dunno," Benry mumbles once he's finished singing. "Just...standing here. Vibing. Gettin' the vibes."

"...'The vibes', huh." Gordon's tone is dubious enough that he doesn't even ask it like a question. Benry shrugs, looking at the floor. "Well. I think my vibes are pretty fucked by now. So _now_ what do you want?"

Benry fidgets for a long moment, giving Gordon's brain enough time to notice that he's probably at least a foot taller than usual. "...What? Oh, uh-huh. I wanna...uhh..." He trails off into more uncomfortable silence. "Wanna get uhhhh...just. Shitty at this. Words suck so _baaad_. Words suck way worse than you." Gordon honestly can't tell if that's a genuine compliment or just a reminder of his joke in Darnold's potions lab. Benry doesn't seem inclined to tell him, just continuing to fidget as teal orbs slip out of his mouth.

...Oh. He gets it. "'Teal means deal,'" he translates. "You gonna cash in your Gordon Favor already?"

Benry nods, finally relaxing enough to look at him. His eyes are reflecting the light like an extremely fucked-up cat. Gordon distantly wonders if his eyes are doing the same (and even more distantly wonders why he's not freaking out about that idea anymore). "...Sure, I guess. I accept the transaction," Gordon says, desperately hoping he's not resigning himself to doing something horrible. "So what are you—"

Benry crawls over Gordon to the other half of his bed and climbs under the comforter next to him.

_...Huh,_ Gordon thinks, as his body completely freezes solid. _Wasn't expecting that._

"...Sleep also sucks," Benry mutters as the colors dissipate and the room gets dark again. "0/10, would not recommend. Never get any of the _good_ dreams. Never get _anything._ S'always just..." He trails off, shivering.

"...Like when you fell all the way down?" Gordon asks, before he winces, instantly feeling like an asshole for reminding him of that. Benry just nods and curls tighter into the comforter, still shivering, and _god_ , why did he even open his big stupid mouth, how is he supposed to make _Benry_ of all people feel better after _that_ —

Without thinking about it, he rolls over and nestles himself against Benry, wrapping one arm around him. Now Benry's the one who freezes, one high-pitched teal orb slipping free. Somehow Gordon doesn't think this color means what it meant a few moments ago. Gordon sings out orbs of his own, ones that shine lavender-gray, until Benry relaxes and snuggles back.

"...I'm sorry," Gordon whispers, when he runs out of breath for his Sweet Voice. "I'm sorry I did that to you. You didn't...it was fucked up. That was fucked up, and I'm sorry."

Benry's silent for a long moment, one that Gordon barely registers through how overwhelmingly _nice_ it is to be holding onto someone. No, that's not true enough, and he knows it. How nice it is, specifically, to be holding onto _Benry_. 

He's so caught up in the ramifications of that thought that he barely hears Benry when he does respond. "...S'not your fault," Benry mumbles. "Had to have...big fight at the end. I was fuckin' with you the most, makin' you be mad at me all the time...made sense that it'd be me."

"I'm still sorry," Gordon says. "I should've done something else. Figured out some way to bullshit our way through the whole thing without..." He trails off.

"Can't blame you for...you didn't wanna," Benry says, filling in the silence. "Didn't know...figured you thought this was a game. Felt like a game to me. Didn't get why you were so pissed 'bout parts of a game fuckin' you over. Thought you were fake-hurt 'bout...arms. Just pretend."

His arm aches with just the memory. "...I wasn't pretending."

Benry buries his face in Gordon's shoulder. "...Know that now," he says, his voice muffled. "Didn't know then. Wasn't...wasn't good anyway. Sorry. Sorry."

Gordon finds himself gently stroking Benry's back until he feels the tension leak out of both of them. "...Glad we got through Gordon and Benry's Late Night Apology Hour," he jokes. He instantly thinks that was a _monumentally_ stupid thing to say, but Benry must disagree, since he feels a quiet laugh against his shoulder. "...Thanks."

"You're welcome," Benry instantly replies. "...Thanks for what?"

Gordon does not have an actual answer for this. "...I don't know. Thanks for apologizing, or actually teaching me how to do the shit you can do, or...using your Gordon Favor on this," he finishes, wondering if his face is glowing from how much he's definitely blushing. "Take your pick."

"Gonna pick all of 'em," Benry declares. "Gonna pick 'em all and beat the game! Pickin' alllll three starters, gonna—gonna kick every ass in the Pocket Monster Gang. Master of pick 'em on."

Gordon laughs way too much for how utterly stupid a joke that was. " _Pick 'em on?_ "

"Huh? Yeah. You never heard of it, nerd? Never heard of good games of pick 'em on?" Benry taunts. As he takes his face off of Gordon's shoulder, he can see Benry's shark-grin in full force. "It's games from...Japan. It's good games. S'the entire Wikipedia article."

"Wikipedia absolutely does not say that about Pokémon," Gordon insists, grinning back. "I mean, Wikipedia doesn't say anything anymore since we blew it up, but it definitely _didn't_ say that about Pokémon—"

"I fixeded it," Benry interrupts. "Fixed Wikipedia and now it says that. Real."

"You _fixed Wikipedia?_ " Gordon asks in disbelief.

"What? No, yeah. Fixed it all up," Benry says. "Free online encyclopedia that anyone can fix. Go check of online. Check articles."

"I _will_ check those articles," Gordon promises, though the idea of leaving right now is instantly vetoed by every part of his being. "...Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll check those articles."

"You better," Benry says, but he seems just as relieved as Gordon is when neither of them move. "Did real good job on 'em."

"I'll bet," Gordon says, not betting anything.

They both lie like that for a while, doing something that Gordon has to admit legally counts as cuddling. He also has to admit that it's not as hard to think that as he thought it would be. It's been that sort of night.

The status quo is only interrupted by Benry's loud yawn, some time later. "Nnnoooo..." he mutters, clearly fighting sleep. "No sleepy. Bad body. Don't wanna do that now. Postpone forever..."

"It's okay," Gordon says softly, his equally sleepy brain on autopilot trying to get Benry to feel better. "...If you get bad dreams, I'll be here to keep you safe."

Benry relaxes against him, shutting his eyes. "...Promise?"

They'll probably have more arguments in the future, more times when they just absolutely can't see eye to eye. They're two different people, even if they're not as different as they used to be. All the new kinds of fuck-ups will help them understand how to do better next time. 

(...And maybe even a few of the same kinds of fuck-ups, because they're both pretty stubborn assholes sometimes.)

The universe is chaotic and messy and wild, and it fucks things up just as much as it brings them together. They can't change that, even if they threw everything out and started over. 

(Any simulated universe that lacked that chaos would be a pretty shitty simulation.)

They can only change how they choose to deal with it all.

(It's the only change they've ever needed.)

"Yeah," Gordon says, falling asleep in Benry's arms. "I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Benry lets out a long string of yellow, which does light up the room a lot more.  
> yellow means 'be mellow'
> 
> \- Now Benry's the one who freezes, one high-pitched teal orb slipping free.  
> teal means 'is this real?'
> 
> i can't thank you guys enough for all the comments and kudos and everything else you've given this fic. it's the very first multi-chapter fanfic i've literally ever completed, and the response has been incredible and delightful and has basically put a permanent smile on my face all week and thank you thank you thank you! 
> 
> hlvrai has become a Huge hyperfixation for me and i am absolutely still stuck in this Hole! so hopefully someday you'll all see my other vague hlvrai ideas crystallized into Future Fan Fictions
> 
> there are a lot of questions in shifter that i've deliberately left unanswered, and if at any point you're inspired to talk those out with me (or yell at me for my Crimes), please absolutely hit me up on tumblr! Do Not Hesitate. I Will Know If You Hesitate https://prismaticlaser.tumblr.com/
> 
> see you, space cowboys.
> 
> Lavender-gray means "it's gonna be okay."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [tommy coolatta and the mortifying ordeal of being up for interpretation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409158) by [tieriaerde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieriaerde/pseuds/tieriaerde)




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